


A Place For You

by deadbydaylight



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, kate denson is extremely repressed, lots of internalized shit going on here, specifically internalized homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:13:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27942812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadbydaylight/pseuds/deadbydaylight
Summary: The fog has a way of making you face your demons, reflecting fears buried so deep you didn't even know you had them- making you confront them directly. Kate Denson learns this the hard way.
Relationships: Kate Denson/Yui Kimura
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	A Place For You

Something tugs at Kate’s heart and pulls it down into her stomach as she spots an unfamiliar face materializing in the fog from a distance. It does every time someone new shows up. Knowing what they’re about to go through, having to break the news to them and watching their face cycle through a thousand emotions- it makes her feel culpable, somehow, even though she knows she isn’t. 

She makes a beeline for her anyway, though, figures that if she can’t do anything to get anyone out of this hellscape then a friendly face might make the transition a little easier.

The woman in question is surveilling the area, eyes narrowed as she scans her new surroundings. She notices her approaching, and her body language relaxes so slightly that it’s almost not even noticeable. 

“What the _fuck_ is this place?” She says, a little too loudly for comfort.

“Shh.” Kate responds softly, raising a finger to her lips. “I’m sorry, hon. I’m so sorry. There’s not a lot of time now. I’ll explain later, I promise. Just follow me.”

The woman pauses for a moment, raising her eyebrow and giving her a once over. Kate can’t blame her for her skepticism, she’d certainly been met with it before, but something about her stare is disarming. She pushes the feeling aside though, maintaining eye contact and giving her a small, reassuring smile. 

Finally, the woman’s face softens. She sighs. “Okay, lead the way.” 

Kate lets out a breath and makes her way to the nearest generator, glancing behind every so often.

“You don’t have to keep looking. I can keep up.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about.” She whispers, kneeling down beside the machine. “We have to repair five of these in order to get out. It’s intimidating but it’s a lot easier than it looks, promise. You just-”

“Intimidating?” The new girl lets out a small chuckle, her hands already effortlessly going through the motions of repairing the generator. “This might be the most comforting thing I’ve seen here so far.”

Kate watches in stunned silence for a moment as her hands make their way around the bits and pieces, fingers gracefully working the different parts. _This is new._ The brief wonder she feels gives way to relief. She can manage repairing a gen by this point, sure, but her teaching skills are still… questionable at best. 

“Well, I’ll be damned..” She shakes her head, forcing her hands to move and start working on the generator with her. “We certainly could have used you around here earlier.”

The woman is unresponsive, her eyes staring ahead of her- seemingly focused on the task at hand. When she speaks again, even in a hushed tone, it’s almost startling to Kate. “You shushed me, you said you didn’t have time to explain. I believe you, but… why are we rushing through this? What are we running from?”

Kate’s heart sinks again. She knows that she can’t delay it, that she has to tell her. “I…-”

A scream in the distance stops her before she can finish her sentence. _Meg._ It cuts through Kate like it does every time, and she shuts her eyes tight- tries to push down the sadness, the rage boiling up inside her. _Meg’s crafty. It’s just one hit, she can keep the bastard busy. She’ll be fine._

“That.” She answers, the veneer of calm she had put on for the new survivor threatening to crack. “That’s what we’re running from.”

A newfound urgency wills them both to work faster. The generator springs to life as another scream from Meg rings through the air, muffled by the sound of the machine now working at full capacity. 

Kate looks towards the direction of the noise, gritting her teeth. It should be easier by now, she thinks. She should be desensitized. But it doesn’t matter how many times she sees one of the others struck down, impaled, stabbed. It still hits her like the first. If it didn’t constantly tear away at her the depth of her emotion would almost be reassuring. She may be going through hell, but at least she hasn’t lost herself. Not yet. 

“I have to go help her.” She says, glancing back at the woman. “You’ll be alright findin' another generator, yeah?”

“I think I can manage.”

She begins to leave when the woman reaches out, her fingers wrapping around Kate’s wrist. The touch takes Kate by surprise, turns her stomach over- threatens to pull it out altogether. 

“You got time to tell me your name?”

“I, uh…” Kate really looks at the woman for the first time, tries to read the dark brown eyes staring into hers like maybe if she looks hard enough she’ll understand why she suddenly feels so sick. She gets nothing. “Kate.”

The woman raises an eyebrow and gives her a little nod. Kate swears for a second that she looks amused, like she’s holding back a smile, and she wonders if her discomfort is that obvious. “Yui.” 

Yui lets go of Kate’s arm, some of the crushing weight on her chest leaving with her touch. 

* * *

Kate tries to see the best in everyone. She really does.

But when she had been left on the hook, two of the others dead and the exits ready to be opened, the sight of Yui running towards her made her want to scream. The goodwill might have been appreciated at any other time, but even now, sitting at the campfire after the fact, she just can't wrap her head around it. It was Yui's first trial- she didn't know the first thing about Kate, by all accounts she should have been skittish. She should have left at the first opportunity. But she didn't. 

_Why? Why couldn't you just leave?_

She remembers what happened afterwards, the scream Yui had made when she'd been hooked in her place and that.. that _thing_ had embedded its claws into her. The sound is in her head forever now, a part of a morbid catalogue with all of the others. It plays in her head again, and she feels her whole body shaking, burning with... something. Anger, she decides, and that scares her because it's never been something she's prone to when it comes to the other survivors. It feels.. different, this time, too, in a way that she can't put her finger on.

 _It should have been me._ She thinks, leaning back against the log. She pulls her knees to her chest and hugs them, resting her chin on top as she watches Yui from across the campfire. 

They're explaining things to her, most likely, about how this place works or how they think it works- one thing you learn is that there aren't any definite things here, just patterns and observations you cling to in the hopes they won't change. Most people, in the beginning, look like they've seen a ghost. They look troubled in a way that makes Kate's heart ache. Not Yui, though. Her face is unreadable as she talks to the others, stopping them every now and then to ask a question. 

"Don't you usually like to do the whole, y'know, greeting committee thing?" Meg says as she takes a seat on the ground beside Kate, snapping her out of her trance.

"We met during the trial, when you were getting chased." Kate replies quietly, feeling a small pang of guilt hit her. "I'm sorry, by the way. Doesn't feel like much of a win when I'm the only one who gets out."

"Nothing you could have done. Seriously though, you alright? You're like … moping, and that's kind of freaky coming from you."

"I'm fine, darlin'. Really." She offers her a little smile. She considers, briefly, telling her what she thinks of the new survivor- how there's something just slightly off, how she makes her feel sick to her stomach. But it wouldn't be fair, would it? They'd only just met, after all, and under what was maybe the worst circumstances.

"Alright, alright. I'm going to go introduce myself, you wanna come over with me?"

Kate looks back over to where Yui is and, once again, her chest tightens. "I think I'm going to go for a walk, actually. I'll catch up with you later."

* * *

Kate tries not to head out into the woods by herself, especially without any sort of purpose. They have a way of playing tricks on you if you're not careful, shifting and rearranging themselves, leaving you walking circles, or, if you're especially unlucky, into one of the killer's realms when they're home. Others had sought those places out before in search of supplies, only to catch the end of someone's'.. something's weapon. Once the campfire disappears behind the line of trees, so does the security that comes with it. 

But, sometimes it's worth it. It's what she used to do back in the real world, after all, whenever she felt small and lost and couldn't find her voice. She remembers the woods at home with a certain fondness, the little rocks and structures and oddly shaped trees that she had memorized to navigate the area. Sometimes she swears that she sees the same ones in these woods, poking out from behind a corner, only to approach it and see that it's gone. 

She doesn't see any now, though, only the usual unfamiliar arrangement of trees. Dark, with a canopy above thick enough to not let any light in, if there was any to get through in the first place. A pitch black forest, somehow _just_ lit enough to be able to navigate. That's how she knows this place isn't real- or, at least, isn't real like the world as she knows it. Nothing operates the way it should.

She does wonder, sometimes, what exactly the place they're in is. It's impossible not to. She's had several theories. That she's dreaming, that she's in a coma, that she's dead. 

She continues forward, a twig snapping under her foot.

That she's in Hell. 

Before she has anytime to dwell on it, a shimmering light between the trees in the distance catches her eye. She takes a step forward, curious, watching the way it illuminates everything around it- casting the trees close to it in light so bright they're no longer visible. Blinding, empty whiteness at its source. In this place, it is certainly a trap, a mirage- and yet she can't stop herself from the step she takes forward, and the next, and the next, until it envelopes her and the world falls away and there's nothing but white and-

_Where... Where am I?_

Kate slowly lowers her arm from where it had been raised to block out the light, eyes adjusting to the new light of the room- sunlight filtering in from stained glass windows, casting the floor in different colors. She realizes, with a start, that she knows this place. 

_Why am I here?_

Everything is as she remembers it, from the pattern of the windows to the color of the rug to the little nicks on the pews, except... There's a pedestal near the altar with a wide basin on it. She approaches it cautiously, skeptically- peers down at the water inside of it. It looks dark and... deep. Deeper than the basin itself, even.

She can't help but lean over the edge of it, reaching a hand in to see how far it goes. The water is cold enough to send a shiver down her spine, getting colder the further her arm goes in. 

This isn't real. This is another one of that _thing's_ tricks. She knows that, knew that from the moment she saw the light, but...

_Why?_

The cold becomes overbearing all at once, stinging and lashing until her arm becomes numb. She goes to pull it out when something grips at her wrist, digging its claws in- ripping at the skin and pulling her further in than she had been before. She struggles, holding it off for a moment, but the thing is _strong,_ pulling until her head is submerged and her throat is full and she can't breathe and-

It gives another tug, pulling her entirely into the water. Her vision goes black and she freefalls, the world around her fading away.

The fall simultaneously lasts forever, the water fading to black to sky; her heartbeat slow and loud in her own head as she has flashes of distant memories and wonders if this is it, and ends instantly- slamming her through the canopy of trees and onto the hard forest ground, causing her to cough up the remaining water in her lungs and an alert that no, she did not imagine that, and yes, she is right back where she started. 

_Maybe._ She thinks, gripping at the wounds on her wrist where she had been grabbed. _Maybe this is Hell._


End file.
